


i'm sticking with you

by iconicponytail



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Omg they were quarantined, no covid drama it's really quite mundane, soft and fluff because it's what we need, this is just vignettes strung together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23694790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iconicponytail/pseuds/iconicponytail
Summary: Suddenly, Betty twines her fingers in his, her eyes still seeking more bursts of color growing in the rare, minuscule patches of dirt. Jughead tries not to react other than holding firmly.(She initiated the hand holding a few days earlier, while watching a decidedly unromantic segment of a baking competition. Jughead thinks it’s just about touch, about longing for physical contact that’s allowed. Their decision to live together is a strangely intimate choice given how relatively little they knew each other before the city-wide lock down. Now, he’d probably list Betty as his emergency contact and she wouldn’t bat an eye. These are the kind of things you don’t think about when you impulsively invite your co-worker’s roommate to co-shelter during a pandemic. Regardless, he hasn’t asked about it, worried it might make her self-conscious. Worried it might mean she’ll stop reaching for him.)or, the mundane moments of falling in love in quarantine
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 56
Kudos: 147
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	i'm sticking with you

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really plan on this happening, but I thought about Jughead tenderly tying a bandanna around Betty's head, so I dug up a vaguely quarantine themed drabble from a few weeks back, and things just kind of spiraled from there.

**_week one_ **

“You’re being paranoid, Betty.” 

Jughead wonders—and has been, interminably, for the past two days—if their quarantine living arrangements might have been an insane idea. 

It was Veronica’s plot—a scheme to couple them up, no doubt. He and Veronica had become grudgingly close coworkers over their years working together at the same publishing agency (he was an editor, she was in PR), but he’ll never align himself with her misbegotten urge to make matches. Jughead does not believe in manifesting romantic comedy logic upon the real world. _Nothing more romantic than a pandemic._

True, he lives alone. Usually, he enjoys it, and so initially, he’d denied the proposal flat out. Of course he was sympathetic to Veronica leaving her roommate for the remote comfort of the Lodge family _hacienda_ , a firm _family only_ rule keeping Betty from coming along. 

It hit while standing in line at the grocery store, holding some frozen chicken, a bag of black beans, and the last carton of eggs in New York City. The panic, the uncertainty. The weak craving for something pleasant to stabilize himself through the looming unknowns. 

He texted Veronica first: _Can she come over by tonight? I don’t want to get shit from my neighbors._

Betty Cooper was at his doorstep three hours later, already apologizing. “I’m really sorry if she strong-armed you into this. Also I probably over-packed.”

Jughead gives her a small smile, reassuring her and asking if he can help unload. She did bring more food than might fit in his cramped kitchen. In fact, Betty gives the small space a once-over, a squint of the eyes, and he has a feeling she’ll have the entire place rearranged by mid-morning tomorrow.

He knows he wouldn’t have agreed to this proposition for just anyone. He likes Betty; she is his go-to conversation partner when he’s bullied into attending Veronica’s various soirees. She’s whip smart, and she always reads his latest editorial pieces ahead of seeing him, coming prepared with poignant questions; it’s deeply flattering. 

And Betty is the kind of person he does not have the natural disposition to be, but that he admires all the more for it. She’s a public school teacher, the kind that still does home visits and teaches fifth graders the definition of _hegemony._

And so, as they awkwardly settle in around one another, the benefits of the arrangement also become clear. Betty stress bakes, and Jughead stress eats. Her book collection is a boon, given the shuttered libraries (of which she seems to also have preemptively borrowed a dozen books from). 

There is the mortifying blessing of her yoga leggings; he’s determined to ignore any cabin-fever romantic feelings and avoid falling victim to Veronica’s greatest hopes and dreams—but there is no ignoring Betty’s legs.

“I know. I mean, it’s probably nothing. I’ve just been feeling a tickle in my throat. Do you have a thermometer?”

They are scrolling through Jughead’s DVR, discovering that Betty is a TV show person, while Jughead is a film snob. They’ve landed on documentaries as their middle ground; he’s watched most of them before, so he’ll latch on to Betty’s reactions; the way she bites her nails and then sits on her hands because she’s annoyed at herself for giving into a bad habit.

Jughead scowls, already familiar with Betty’s little comments gradually spiraling into full blown worry. (He can’t judge her for it—she’s probably better off externalizing her thoughts than what Jughead does—bottle, stew, repeat.) He reaches over to place a hand on her forehead.

Betty flushes, but not with fever.

Jughead finds it’s hard to withdraw his hand; her forehead is soft and smooth.

Betty swallows. “Sorry, I’m just… we’re all going to be so touch starved when this is over, huh?”

They laugh it off, but when Jughead gets up to refill her wine glass and serve himself more of the curry Betty made, he intentionally sits closer to her on the couch. She leans her head into his arm, and he has to agree with her about touch. It could certainly make life more bearable.

* * *

**_week two_ **

Betty finishes teaching virtual classes by noon and works out while Jughead makes lunch; usually just leftovers of whatever Betty’s made the night before, or something revived from the stores of frozen dumplings she’d painstakingly assembled last weekend. He can’t eat them without thinking about he stray pieces of her hair escaping from their bun, the swipe of flour on her cheek, the expression of adorable concentration as she manipulated the folds around the filling. Jughead thinks his body lost hold of homeostasis watching her in that moment.

Before this strange chapter, he might have been able to describe Betty Cooper as ‘objectively attractive.’ Now he finds himself considering adjectives for Betty that he would vehemently protest in written copy; terms like _angelic_ or a _classic beauty._ He thought, perhaps, when she glanced up from her book the other day and he labeled it— _Grace Kelly—_ that the blooming fixation might abate. Instead, it’s blazed into full-bodied burning desire.

He avoids the bathroom when she’s first woken up; the vision of her untamed hair and sleep shorts just _once_ was enough to inspire a five minute extension to his showers for the rest of the week. When she bakes something and asks, _What do you think, Juggie?_ he turns beet red and chokes a little.

They evolve from television in the evenings to Betty teaching him various card games, evidence of her wholesome family life. Jughead admits he knows a lot of card tricks, but nothing else besides blackjack and texas hold ‘em. Quick study that she is, Betty seems to know just which questions to ask to pry some of his childhood out of him. She softens the edges of his vulnerabilities with admissions of her own; she’s not sure her mom really loved her dad, that Hal Cooper seemed like a way to put out the fires of Alice Smith’s past. 

“I’d rather be alone than use someone for the sake of my own comfort,” she confesses. “But I’m also not great at being alone. Hence…” she gestures to the fact that she’s been sitting on his living room floor. That she has a favorite wine glass of his. That she’s asked him if he has anything to throw into a load of laundry. 

“Can I ask—” Betty hesitates for a breath, and Jughead knows where she’s going. “Why you agreed to this? I mean, you don’t strike me as the kind of person who minds isolation.”

Jughead scowls good-naturedly, deflecting the question. “What tipped you off? My bubbly personality? My ease in making friends?”

Betty scoffs. “I think you’re _very_ easy to like.” Jughead prays that he’s not imagining the color flooding her cheeks.

She stares intently, waiting for her answer. A teacher, he remembers, possesses an intimidating amount of patience for the results they want. 

“It hit me, the day you came over, that what we’re going through is… unprecedented. And that I might not know what I want, come ten more days. And…” Jughead fiddles with one of the joker cards. _Come on, she’s shown you her hand._ “I’ve never regretted your company.”

That night Betty falls asleep on the couch, rather than making it to the daybed in Jughead’s office/second bedroom. He’s not sure why, but he decides to stay on the other couch. It’s nice to fall asleep to the sound of her breathing.

* * *

**_week three_ **

At six pm, when he’s finally detached himself from emails and video calls and last minute scans of social media publishing schedules, they take a short walk around the neighborhood.

Despite the fact that he’s done well for himself, Jughead still has a poor kid mentality about certain things; he didn’t order organic cotton reusable face masks because bandannas work just as well.

Betty struggles to secure the swath of fabric comfortably around her face. 

“Here, let me,” Jughead moves behind her, tying the bandanna below her ponytail, careful not to get any of the wispy baby hair snagged in the knot. Being this close to her, smelling her shampoo, Jughead feels his body temperature rise, grateful for his own makeshift face mask to hide his blush.

The best flower sightings become their marked walking path; Betty hunts for blooming daffodils and sighs with momentous delight when she sees them. “I’m like this in real time, too,” she confesses. “I love springtime.”

Jughead has always kind of hated spring; it’s gross, unpredictable, and lasts far too long for his taste. But he’s never walked his neighborhood this much, never taken note of which row houses have the most brilliant tulips, or which balconies are spilling with greenery. 

Suddenly, Betty twines her fingers in his, her eyes still seeking more bursts of color growing in the rare, minuscule patches of dirt. Jughead tries not to react other than holding firmly.

(She initiated the hand holding a few days earlier, while watching a decidedly unromantic segment of a baking competition. Jughead thinks it’s just about touch, about longing for physical contact that’s allowed. Their decision to live together is a strangely intimate choice given how relatively little they knew each other before the city-wide lock down. Now, he’d probably list Betty as his emergency contact and she wouldn’t bat an eye. These are the kind of things you don’t think about when you impulsively invite your co-worker’s roommate to co-shelter during a pandemic. Regardless, he hasn’t asked about it, worried it might make her self-conscious. Worried it might mean she’ll stop reaching for him.)

In a moment, she’ll ask him something—his favorite season, the place he misses going the most. But for now Jughead presses his thumb gently into her hand and feels like the luckiest idiot in Manhattan.

* * *

**_week four_ **

“Do you want to make me a list for the grocery store? You went last time, so I can go,” he offers. Betty is picky about her grocery shopping in a way that Jughead finds adorable—even though objectively it shouldn’t be, but he’s pretty much a lost cause at this point. Last night, Betty begged him to rent a recent Jane Austen adaptation and he’d both caved immediately _and_ found himself relating absurdly to the romantic male lead, rending his hands and unbuttoning his shirt cuffs like a lunatic.

“Um,” she starts, still looking at something on her phone. “Yeah, I can make a list, but it might just be easier if I go. Or we get take-out?” 

Jughead wants to protest, to prove himself a capable mate, able to follow what is sure to be a list with not just ingredients, but specific brands and weights and volumes. But then the phone rings and it’s her sister—Polly’s husband tested positive a few days ago. It’s mild, but it has Betty on edge, even if she won’t admit it. He lets go for the moment of his desire to prove himself worthy.

Later, they curl up, books in hand, in their usual posts on either couch. Betty has her hair in a sloppier ponytail than usual, which always makes Jughead a little more distracted. He doesn’t think she catches him darting glances across the room, but at some point she snaps her book shut and marches over to him with a challenging look. 

Jughead closes his own book slowly and sets it aside, not bothering to mark the page. He has no idea what’s happened for the last ten pages anyway. 

Betty climbs over him and kneels over his lap. He’s frozen, too stunned to move until he notes the glimmer of panic in Betty’s expression. Jughead breathes deeply, quelling the fear, and folds her into his arms.

Her mouth is perfect; soft and urgent at the same time. Sensual but measured. Betty hums against his lips—or maybe he’s moaning against hers. It’s hard to tell. Her pastel pink sweatshirt hikes up and he makes her shiver with the tips of his fingers along the slope of her hip bones. He knows she can feel him, hard against her thigh, but she seems unabashed. 

When she starts to unhook her bra, Jughead stops her. “Betty, I—I want to, but I don’t know if I can.”

She smiles, probably amused by the clear disparity between his words and his body, so he barrels on, clarifying as eloquently as he can given the circumstances. “I don’t want you just because you’re the only person who is currently allowed to touch me. I don’t want _you_ to want _me_ because I’m the only person who is allowed to touch you.”

Betty swallows, and Jughead braces for her disappointment, but nevertheless relieved that he’s been honest. But instead she pulls her sweatshirt off, unclips her bra, and slides out of her running shorts. If she’s testing his sincerity by stripping naked, well, he’s probably going to fail drastically. 

“Jughead Jones, you _are_ absolutely the only person allowed to touch me, and it has nothing to do with the state of the world.”

* * *

**_week ?_ **

They agree that for the sake of normalcy, of making wise and measured and adult decisions, Betty will move back to her apartment the week after the restrictions are loosened. 

It doesn’t last very long. Veronica complains that Betty cooks way too much food and blames her tendencies on portioning for Jughead’s appetite for so long. Betty complains that Veronica gloats too much about her masterminded scheme. Jughead just hates his empty bed, hates not having coffee already made when he wakes, hates missing things like overhearing Ms. Cooper’s Morning Greeting routine from the dining table. The last thing will hopefully be a permanent relic of the past; hopefully Betty will be able to go back to a physical school building in the fall. 

For a while they consider looking for a new place, but Betty doesn’t like anything Jughead sends her. “We’re already at home in your place.” She nuzzles into one of his pillows, to demonstrate.

“You hate how small the kitchen is.” He just doesn’t want her to have any regrets.

“It’s Manhattan, I will always hate how small the kitchen is. At least yours I’ve already rigged to my liking.”

Jughead sighs. “You won’t… feel trapped? Coming back here?”

Betty looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “This is my safe place,” she declares, and wraps her arms around him, burrowing her face into his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the velvet underground song. 
> 
> hope this served you some softness, come commiserate with me about bughead on tumblr (@iconic-ponytail)!


End file.
